The numbers running up the left hand side are reflective of the amount of times each word was said by a participant.
There were many advances in the project due to this research method, firstly I had anticipated that there may be some words which were associated with both birth and death but I had not predicted the words would be so relevant and crucial to my project. The words Earth, Blood and Light were said in relation to both Birth and Death which was highly motivating as they symbolised many of the themes I was already exploring and served as a source of great inspiration.
Another interesting finding of the study was that I was able to identify categories which words associated with both Birth and Death fitted into. I had not anticipated that there would be so many parallels in the types of words answered and this acted as a source of encouragement as it reaffirmed that the two acts naturally mirror one another. It was significant that both acts evoked numerous words associated nature and the body as they were two of the core themes of my research. I had anticipated that the majority of words associated with Death would be negative and the majority of words associated with Birth would be positive and my study confirmed this. This further stimulated my aim to challenge and merge the western connotations of both events.
The diagram I created led me to imagine how my final outcome could transfer and merge the words associated with Birth and Death. Death could embody positive words and emotions such as ‘beautiful’, ‘happiness’, ‘love’, ‘hope’ and ‘beginnings’ through the celebration of words with negative connotations such as ‘decay’ and ‘end’. In contrast I felt it important the design acknowledge that the act of birth can evoke negative words and emotions such as ‘loss’, ‘grief’ and ‘lonely’. By associating words connected to death to the act of Birth taboos and stigmas are challenged and broken down and vice versa when equating positive words to death.